Swedish intelligence: Russia will remain a threat to its neighbours after Putin

Sweden's military intelligence believes the Russian regime is likely to remain a threat to its neighbours long after Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin leaves power.

As reported by Bloomberg, the comments suggest that Sweden holds a particularly pessimistic view of its future relationship with Russia.

"We don't see this crisis as a temporary one; Russia has chosen its path, and there is no way back. We are in a strategic confrontation that is deep, structural and enduring – we can't wish that away," Thomas Nilsson, head of Sweden's military intelligence, said.

He noted that Russia's economy continues to struggle, while officials are manipulating statistics to conceal the impact of the four-year full-scale war on economic growth and inflation.

However, Nilsson said there is nothing in the near term to suggest that Putin's regime is under threat.

"Political opposition has effectively been eliminated – through exile, imprisonment, or, in the worst cases, assassination. There is no one capable of channeling public dissatisfaction into a political alternative," he added.

Opinion polls also indicate that part of the Russian population genuinely supports, if not necessarily the war itself, then Russia's ambitions "as a great power", Nilsson noted.

"We don't expect any dramatic change," he added.

The Dutch Ministry of Defence recently described Russia as the principal threat to Europe in its plan for modernising the country's armed forces and defence sector.

Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Russia could stage a "false flag operation" to justify an attack on a NATO member state.